B13 Peer Review

As it became more and more difficult for bands to get signed by the huge record labels, independent record labels began to pop up. Independent record labels (also known as indies or garage labels) can be as large as some of the smaller corporate record companies or as small as one or two people. According to  Music Biz Academy , the reason that so few independent record labels succeed is due to the sheer amount of money, work and time it takes to run a record label. Now that you understand the organization of a record label, you can see how difficult it would be to have to take on the job of A&R, artist development, marketing, publicity and sales with only a few people. The larger record companies succeed because they have the money and power to hire many people to do all these jobs. At an independent record label, it may be the same person who discovers the artist or band, calls the radio stations about getting airplay and arranges the artist's publicity. That is not to say t...

Music moguls Jay-Z and Diddy have once again reigned supreme against their hip-hop competition becoming the only two rap acts to land spots on Forbes' 25 Highest Paid Musicians list. Same people every year. Touring is the clearest way to millions in the music business these days, as Forbes’ new list of the 25 highest-paid musicians shows. U2 leads the pack with $195 million, due in no small part to their record-breaking “360″ tour, which has grossed more than $700 million over two years. Road warriors Bon Jovi were second with $125 million; Elton John third with $100 million (thanks to a 102-show tour); Lady Gaga was fourth with $90 million and a tour schedule that ran from 2009 until last month; and Michael Bublé was fifth with $70 million, also thanks to a big tour. According to Forbes, the numbers encompass all pretax income earned from May 2010 to May 2011, before subtracting agent and manager fees. The totals were compiled with the help of data from Pollstar, RIAA and o...

Dr. Charles Drew Blood Bank Inventor It's impossible to determine how many hundreds of thousands of people would have lost their lives without the contributions of African-American inventor Dr. Charles Drew. This physician, researcher and surgeon revolutionized the understanding of blood plasma – leading to the invention of blood banks. Born in 1904 in Washington, D.C., Charles Drew excelled from early on in both intellectual and athletic pursuits. After becoming a doctor and working as a college instructor, Drew went to Columbia University to do his Ph.D. on blood storage. He completed a thesis titled Banked Blood that invented a method of separating and storing plasma, allowing it to be dehydrated for later use. It was the first time Columbia awarded a doctorate to an African-American. At the onset of World War II, Drew was called upon to put his techniques into practice. He emerged as the leading authority on mass transfusion and processing methods, and went on to hel...

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news , world news , and news about the economy Funny Girl, the 1968 vehicle that plucked a young Jewish woman from Brooklyn named Barbra Streisand out of relative obscurity and vaulted her into immortality, is on the cusp of revival on Broadway. In an interesting wrinkle, the casting of Lauren Ambrose, a television actress chosen to play lead character Fanny Brice, has been met with some consternation. The problem? Apparently Ms. Ambrose is a bit too Shiksa (non-Jewish) to occupy a role once held by a Jew who is now one of the most successful entertainers in modern history. The Funny Girl controversy bears more than a whiff of the subterranean fire smoldering around The Help, an estimable film about black domestic workers in the 1960s segregated South, and the aspiring young writer aiming to breathe literary life into their stories. In some quarters, The Help has been dismissed as yet another entry in a genre that sees potent black characters relegated...